If you follow college football, you probably heard that the leaders of the top football programs were meeting to finally discuss making some changes to the infuriating BCS. From what we can tell now, sounds like they are merely making a tiny change from the current system to a “Final Four” type program. While I am glad they are finally moving towards some changes, a Final Four is really only a small step. Back in 2003, I wrote the following blog post that created a much deeper and efficient playoff that incorporated 16 teams, as well as all of the current Bowl games (or the current number of bowl games back then). Take a read and someone help forward this to the BCS people so maybe they’ll make an even better decision about change.
Bring on the Playoffs
Are we all fed up yet? Once again, the process of attempting to discover a National Champion has gone awry. For all the apologists, the BCS is just a “Better Crappy System.” “Better Crappy System.” Still the operative word is crappy. Ever since my Auburn Tigers were cheated in 1983 by the previous lame system that allowed a suspect Miami team to jump from #5 to #1 just because they beat the then #1 Cornhuskers, I’ve never quite figured out the problem here. I know you already know the obvious facts such as the other football divisions having a playoff system, the big money controlling things through the bowls, the supposed joke of an argument about too many games, et al. So, I’ll skip to the chase.
I am proposing a groundswell of argument in favor of a 16-team playoff system. And below, I will detail the system using this year’s teams for reference. Obviously, you start with a 16-team bracket. That means 4 weekends of games for the final two teams. Working backward from the championship game, let’s walk through it.
A Playoff System for 16 Teams
The championship bowl game, the two semi-final games and one of the “Elite 8” sites would come from our current BCS bowls—Fiesta, Sugar, Orange and Rose. Those 4 bowls would rotate yearly so that each bowl continues to get the Championship Game once per 4 years. The previous year’s Championship site would rotate back to the Elite Eight site. To compensate for any perceived slight at not being a Championship or Semi-Final game, the Elite Eight games would be held at just 2 locations, thus ensuring that said bowl would receive adequate financial compensation by having two games on one day, or on a Saturday-Sunday format.
The other Elite Eight game would be the reward for the lower tier of current “End of year/January 1st bowls”—the Cotton, Peach, Outback, Gator and Capitol One. One of those bowls would rotate up to the Elite Eight weekend of bowls once every five years. The other 4 bowls would then take the premier Round one (Sweet Sixteen) games: the top 4 seeds would be the obvious choice, or you could allow them to pick to take advantage of regional choices they might pursue.
The final 4 Sweet Sixteen games would be decided by someone else. Honestly, who really watches those other 20 some odd games unless your team is there. Let the NCAA pick once and for all from a lottery, or perhaps go with the longest running bowls like the Liberty or Sun. In any case, they still get an incredible game.
So here is how the bracket from the 2003-2004 season would look:
Of course you can tell this was built off of the current BCS poll. That could easily change, but for sake of argument, that was the easiest path. The initial thing that could possibly rise as a complaint were those last 2 selections. Using the polls as a simple guide, there were 4 teams up for 2 slots—Washington State, Mississippi, Boise State, and Florida. For ease of decision, I ignored the BCS on the 15th slot (UF) due to 4 losses. I reluctantly left Boise State out due to strength of schedule, thus leaving me with Mississippi and Washington State.
The fact that some teams would still get left out is an argument against a playoff. Unlike NCAA basketball, football teams cannot play games in a back-to-back weekend formula. That negates adding too many levels. While my neighbors here in Florida and the fine folks of Boise State would cry “foul,” the fact that a #17 ranked team did not get in would not smack of hypocrisy the way that this year’s BCS (or any of the previous years) does. The fact is that every year there is some team in the Top 10 that everyone admits is “playing the best/hottest/toughest football right now.” That team is rarely a #14-20 team so if they get left out at that point, too bad. But the integrity of the system that gets that year’s top teams would be protected.
Arguments Against 16 Team Playoff
So, now what could possibly be the arguments against this system? There are only a few, so let’s work through them one at a time. First, and perhaps the biggest, is the change to our end of year football culture. We’ve had the bowls for decades now all happening on January 1st and we’d be asking the country to move past that. You know what–within 2 years, 3 max, it would happen. People would move on, enraptured by the incredible football over 4 weekends and the old bowl system would have gone the way of the dodo.
Second, “ a playoff asks teams to play too many games.” Poppycock. This year the top 24 teams of the AP poll ALL played 12 or more games. They are all going to play a bowl game. There is NO argument about players not being able to do it. Now, one HUGE presupposition for my position is this: that each Division 1 team is limited to only playing in 11 regular season games. I understand that such would hit the pocketbooks of the teams, but the overall TV and bowl payout for the playoff would offset that supposed loss of revenue. However, even if it did not, I stand firm that each team could do with one less game.
What about the playoff teams? Well, you are asking 8 teams to play only one extra game, which they do now already. You are asking 4 teams to play 2 extra games (13 total, again what most play already). You are asking 2 teams to play 3 games (14 total, still reasonable and less than some teams have played this year in their regular season). Finally, you are asking only 2 teams to play 4 extra games, to a total of 15 games). I do not propose eliminating the Conference Championship Games, so yes, the total games for top teams would go up 1 game with the conference championships which. Those games go a long way to helping decide the final rankings. In any case, the lower divisions do this already with little to no problems. These games could not interfere with college any more than they currently do.
Third problem would be the schedule. Yes, for the sake of tradition, I place the final game on January 1st. Thus, that demands playing football during December. Except for finals (which could be worked around if need be), I see no problem with this. In fact, yearly we watch our really “hot” team at the end of the year look really poor at the bowl due to 3-4 weeks of rust. Playing out the season would make for better football. But this schedule change would demand that the season shrink and some “open dates” go away. That is not as huge a deal as we think. Certainly having an open date helps injured players come back, but many teams don’t get to have a break. With the drop of games allowed to 11, you can start when we start already and still get finished before Thanksgiving, allowing for the Conference Championship games that weekend.
Fourth complaint– “with a playoff, the regular season games become meaningless.” Again, baloney! Each game would get bigger as the rankings processed. Don’t you think that Mississippi (in our example above) would love to have beaten LSU, thus escaping a tough first round game with Oklahoma? Sure they would! Even for the worse teams, they then get the fun position of playing spoiler by giving a team in the lower rankings a shove out with a big loss.
Fifth problem, what about the bowl tradition and the other teams that “deserve a reward.” Well, currently there are 28 bowl games letting 56 teams play one more game and all the economic reward that accompanies that game (for the teams and the region of the bowl game). In my system, you’d have 13 Championship bowls with 16 teams. We would allow the other 15 bowls not associated with the playoff to remain with the only exception (and this could be debatable) that they could not play on January 1. That gets 30 more teams, up to a total of 46 teams getting a bonus. I’d bet within 5 years that you’d see 5 more bowls pop up for those last remaining 10 teams.
However, let me suggest something else and I’m about to slam my own team, Auburn. Does a team with 5 losses deserve a “reward?” This year there are two 6-6 teams, one 7-6 and 11 other teams with 5 losses, all in bowl games. In basketball, those corresponding percentages would be (for a 30 game season), somewhere between 15-15 and 17-13. Again, I don’t know about you, but there aren’t too many .500 teams getting into March Madness and when those 17-13, 17-15, 19-16 teams get in, everyone complains because it eliminated a more deserving team with 20 wins. My point is that my Auburn Tigers and the other 14 teams with 5 or more losses should be happy to make it out of the season with a winning record and try to learn from it. They don’t “deserve” a bowl game. In my system, should they get one of those lesser bowls, well then good for them, but who really cares.
Well, there you go. This is an easy thing to imagine and not difficult to employ. If some are fearful that the loss of the lower bowls actually harms some town, then let them keep playing, just like the NIT in basketball, allowing those mediocre teams to still have a game. Actually, I think within a few years, few would care or watch. In a playoff system, you would have 13 great bowl sites with games that are critical and fun and exciting!
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